A federal bankruptcy judge said yesterday he intends to approve the sale of the Reading Eagle to a large newspaper chain known for taking over struggling papers and then making deep newsroom cuts, the Associated Press reported. MediaNews Group, better known as Digital First Media, offered $5 million for the assets of the family-owned Reading Eagle Co., which filed for bankruptcy protection in March. Chief Judge Richard E. Fehling said yesterday that he plans to sign off on the sale. Digital First owns about 200 papers and other publications, including The Denver Post and the Boston Herald. Its biggest shareholder is Alden Global Capital, a New York hedge fund that invests in distressed companies. Like many other newspapers, the Eagle has struggled with declining ad revenues. It was also burdened with heavy debt from the 2009 expansion of its downtown printing press and distribution center. The newspaper said it has been losing millions of dollars a year. Peter Barbey, the president and chief executive of the Reading Eagle Co. — whose great-great-grandfather started the paper — had been loaning it money to keep it afloat. The company said it will "re-create" the Eagle so the paper "has the appropriate resources" to provide local news coverage. Digital First did not say how many of the paper's workers it plans to lay off or whether it will reduce the number of days it publishes a print edition.
